Jets Become Latest N.F.L. Team to Settle a Wage Lawsuit Filed by Cheerleaders

The Jets have become the fourth team in the N.F.L. to settle a class-action lawsuit over wages paid to their cheerleaders.

The Jets officially agreed last Friday to pay a total of $325,000 to 52 of the team’s dancers, known as the Jets Flight Crew, who worked from 2011 to 2013 for fixed pay that some said violated minimum wage laws.

Like the Oakland Raiders, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Cincinnati Bengals, who settled similar suits, the Jets did not admit wrongdoing.

The team declined to comment Wednesday, pointing to a public statement from August, when the terms of the settlement finalized by a judge last week had been tentatively reached. “The Jets deny the claims,” the statement said, “and the parties have agreed to a settlement to avoid the expense, time and distraction of litigation.”

The suit was filed in May 2014 in state court in New Jersey, where the Jets are headquartered, by a woman identified as Krystal C. She danced for the team for one season, from June 2012 to December 2013.

In that time, the complaint said, dancers were paid flat fees — $150 for games, $100 for special events — while required to spend additional hours practicing, exercising and engaging in beauty regimens at their own expense. The women were also made to buy “motivational” gifts for one another and their coach, the suit said. Those who were featured in the Jets Flight Crew calendar also had to buy calendars and spend time selling them to fans.

By some estimates of hours worked and expenses incurred, the flat-rate pay translated to hourly wages that fell under $4. Minimum wage in New Jersey was $7.25 in 2012; it is currently $8.38.

Every Jets cheerleader eligible for settlement money in the case — any woman who danced for the team during the two seasons spanning 2012 to 2014 — has opted to collect it, said Sharon Vinick, an employment lawyer from California who helped argue the case. Barring an appeal, which Ms. Vinick called unlikely, the women will each receive roughly $2,500 within 45 days; those featured in calendars will receive an extra $400 per photo shoot.

Ms. Vinick argued the first suit of this kind, filed against the Raiders in January 2014. The Raiders paid a sizable $1.25 million to settle it because of California’s strict employment laws and because the Raiders’ squad was roughly twice the size of the Jets’.

But not all women who danced for the Raiders chose to receive settlement money, Ms. Vinick said, attributing their decisions to fear of retaliation and job loss.

“Women worry that they’re going to be blackballed,” she said, adding that she did not expect to see many future cases of this type filed against N.F.L. teams because cheerleaders feared speaking out and because teams were likely to have proactively improved their employment practices.

“There has obviously been a sea change in the way these teams are viewing women,” Ms. Vinick said Wednesday. “It’s not just that they’ve settled but that they have also changed their policies.”

The N.F.L. declined Wednesday to comment on the specifics of the case. “We expect clubs to comply with federal, state and local wage laws,” a spokesman said.

State legislators have called on the league to establish guidelines for teams on cheerleader compensation. Some have called for dancers to be direct employees, as the Jets cheerleaders were, rather than independent contractors. Such contracts can insulate teams from liability related to on-the-job injury or sexual harassment claims, said Michael H. LeRoy, a law professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In September, 19 lawmakers from states including New York, California, Texas and Ohio wrote to Commissioner Roger Goodell asking that he provide teams with direction on the issue.

Fundamentally, Ms. Vinick said, she does not think the N.F.L. was liable in the wage-theft cases in question. The Raiders’ settlement, reached in 2014, is under appeal by another former dancer who has called the payment too low and who is also seeking money from the N.F.L.

Last year, legal claims of wage theft by cheerleaders spread from the N.F.L. to the N.B.A. In September, a dancer for the Milwaukee Bucks sued the team in federal court in Wisconsin.

“There’s a connection between exploitation of women and independent contractor agreements,” Mr. LeRoy said. “If a team has cheerleaders, it’s hard to imagine they would not make significant changes to their employment models after these lawsuits.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Like Three N.F.L. Teams Before, Jets Settle a Wage Lawsuit Filed by Cheerleaders. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe